


Never Enough

by happycookiie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Bethyl Smut Week, Character Death, Dream Sex, F/M, Heartache, Loss, Love, Post-Canon, Sex, Sexual Fantasy, Smut, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 10:38:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4476215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycookiie/pseuds/happycookiie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Losing her is something Daryl thinks he will never recover from. She haunts his dreams nightly, and one dream becomes too much that he just can't bear the pain of having lost her. And he gives into sin and ravishes her in his fantasy realm... But it's not enough. It's never enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Something slightly sadder this time. Sorry if it hurts you! (I know it hurts me).

Sun shining bright in the sky; birds flying high overhead; a field lined with lime green shrubbery that extended for miles... and a dainty blonde laid sprawled out upon the grasses, fair hair fanned out all around her head and shoulders like the golden hue of a halo.

Daryl stood several feet away from the said angelic maiden, battered crossbow slung across his shoulder and an arrow grasped tightly in his iron grip, as he ran his large fingers along its smooth yet grimy surface.

He watched her chest lift up and down softly through the dark curtain-like bangs that were plastered to his face with sweat as she breathed in and out, completely oblivious to the lethal and twisted world steadily unraveling around her. Examining her small and delicate form, his eyes raked along the various coloured scars and bruises that lined her still pretty face. Those scars were reminders to him... reminders of his failure... failure to protect her from the poison of the world they lived in.

She opened her eyes in that moment, thick smoky lashes fluttering open to reveal the glittering blues beneath, shimmering almost silver in the harsh sunlight. Leisurely, she sat up from her laying position and tilted her head in his direction, the rays of the sun mixing with the gold of her hair so Daryl struggled to tell the difference between the two radiant colours.

Her gaze met his, and a warm smile broke out across her face, her eyes filling with that same warmth her smile held; a warmth that rivaled even that of the sun. She was very much like the sun, he thought to himself as he watched her: bright, mellow, spreading her warmth out on everything she touched... But fierce and fiery like the sun too. A force; a flame, that no man could extinguish... until one had. With the silly accidental outcome of a damned  _trigger-finger_. That was the worst part about it... how it had been an accident. How she'd come so far, and fought so hard to live, only to be brought down by  _accident_. She was the least person whom had deserved such a fate. The last person for destiny to scowl upon and damn to death like that. It was simply cruel.

"Lovely weather we're havin' huh?" she pulled him out of his dark thoughts with her dazzling smile and cheery banter.

That was Beth alright, making light of every conversation she could... even in death. Because that's just what she was -  _light_.

Daryl remembered it was people's small talk like that that used to irritate him, back before the world had gone to shit. He'd loathed the awkward "oh isn't the sky pretty today"s and "hey how are you"s. But with Beth... she turned his opinion on that right round, when she'd crawled into the deepest depths of his soul and held on with all her might. With Beth... the small talk wasn't patronizing in the slightest. In fact it filled him with an oddly relaxed familiar feeling that he hadn't felt since way before the bullet had flown clumsily through her brain on account of Dawn's fucking  _stupid_  trigger-finger. He'd shot that bitch good after what she'd done. After what she'd  _taken_. Not just from him, but from the world.

He allowed his mouth to curl up into a half smirk, as he lowered his crossbow and took a seat on the lawn beside her, his eyes never leaving her glinting sapphires. "S'okay I s'pose." he grunted in response, shrugging his broad shoulders.

Her smile widened (if that was even possible) and she crossed her legs. "I guess weather ain't really much of anyone's concern anymore now is it?" she remarked, "Kinda makes me sad to be honest, rememberin' back when people cared whether it was sunny or not... I remember Maggie an' me used to get all giddy and giggly whenever the sun was shinin' like this. We'd take daddy's picnic basket and fill it with all kinds of junk. Canned peaches, strawberries an' stuff; then we'd skip down to the fields at the bottom of the farm, singin' silly little tunes, and have our own little picnic."

Daryl knew these memories of hers were just ones his imagination had conjured up for her, to animate her with personality so that she wasn't just a blank dead body, limp in his arms... But the light dancing in her eyes as she recalled those false memories his mind had given her from before the outbreak... before the world turned to shit and she hadn't had her brains blown out. Daryl was entranced by those vibrant sparkles in her baby blues, his entire attention weaved into her being... be she real or not.

She broke free from her nostalgic trance and laughed lightly, her shoulders bouncing up and down in her apparent amusement. "Silly huh?" she sighed lightly, "I'm the one that told you to put memories like that away... an' now here I am ramblin' on about crazy stuff me and my sister used to do... Would ya jus' look at me."

Her laughter seemed to take a relatively sad factor as her gaze slipped downward and traces of sorrow graced her smiling expression. Daryl felt the need to say something; to erase those traces of pain. To reach out and wipe those frightening yet hauntingly beautiful scars off her face and soul... just as she had erased the pain of his.

"...I am..." he mumbled awkwardly, like usual having trouble wording his incoherent thoughts, " _Lookin_ ' at ya, I mean..." Damn. Even in his dreams he was shit with wordplay.

Her gaze drifted upward again and she watched him with a lazy smile. It stayed like that for a while before she reached out and touched his hand gently, fingers brushing his battered knuckles and rubbing soothing circular motions on his skin. "...Daryl?" she whispered breathily, with eyes that seemed to bore into his very core, her fingers curling around his hand.

"...Mhmm?..." he mumbled, steadily leaning inwards unconsciously, not even daring to pull his eyes away from hers for even a millisecond... just in case her image faded away like he knew it eventually would... Like it always did.

As it did every time when he finally awoke from his imaginary haven to a land of twisted reality. A sickening plain of dystopia.

So he just allowed his eyelids to slide closed as he leaned in ever so slowly, her hand soft atop of his.

"...When exactly are you plannin' on takin' a shower?"

Her completely random question broke the trance he was in and he sat back again, blinking rapidly in shock. "...W-what? Whaddya mean? Are you tryin'a say I stink or somethin'?" he frowned, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms. He certainly hadn't expected that, but then again, she was always surprising him Beth. Always proving him wrong in some way, whether it was about her being strong, or how much more quickly she could catch a squirrel than he could.

Unexpectedly, she broke out into a fit of giggles at his change in attitude and fell backward onto the lawn, laughing hysterically at his reaction. Daryl watched her flail around wildly, blonde hair falling across her yellow polo-clad shoulders and chest, as strands fanned out on the grass all around her. A faint flush graced her cheeks as she laughed; an indication she was alive...

... _Alive_...

He wanted to hold onto that picture, grasp it with every inch of his willpower and never let it go... Anchor it to his existence, to give him something to fight for, a reason to live. The memory of her alive and happy, because even that was something to help get him through the barren life he lived.

"Seriously though, when are ya gonna hop in the shower?" she giggled from where she lay on the lawn, "Since ya got showers, ya may as well use 'em!"

He snorted. "Don't need a shower. Bein' clean an' tidy is for pussies anyway!" She smirked as he rambled, eyes narrow and glinting in apparent amusement. "Bein' clean's not gonna save your ass if a walker comes chompin'. Ya gotta be ready whenever. Ain't no time to be sittin' around on your ass actin' like the world ain't like the way it is."

"You mean like they do in Alexandria." she stated rather than asked, eyes staring at him knowingly.

Hearing that name on Beth's lips made him sad. Sad that she would never know of the sanctuary they had finally found that they'd dreamed about for what felt like forever... never walk it's grounds and have the chance to feel save; to live again. Because Beth was one of the people who deserved to make it to a place like Alexandria the most. It was ironic, he thought, that whilst they'd spent years dreaming of a safe place they could live without walkers roaming around eating everyone, a safe place to just _be_... and now here he was dreaming of a life outside the walls... a life where  _Beth_  was still here with him. Because she was the closest he'd come to feeling like he belonged, and anywhere she was is where he wished to be.

"You feel like you don't belong there, huh?" she asked with a sad smile, "In Alexandria."

Even in his mind she knew him better than he knew himself. He didn't know how she did it, but she just _knew_.

"Nah..." he sighed, "... But  _you_  would'a." His smile, like hers, was sad. Lined with regret; regret for what could have been. His mind was filled with if-onlys. If only he'd shot Dawn straight away, if only he'd held her back from running to Noah... if only he'd  _tried_. Tried to stop what happened that day in the dull and sinister corridor of Grady Memorial Hospital. Tried to make sure that she got out, like Noah had.

She reached out and curled her fingers around his again, her eyes warm and smiling. "It wasn't your fault..." she whispered softly, "It wasn't..."

He had leaned over and kissed her before he could even think about restraining himself. His thoughts were just filled with her bright eyes and soft voice, as he kissed her desperately, images of blood spurting out of the back of her head from the bullet flashing through his head to further fuel the passion put behind his lips. Kissing harder as he watched her limp body drop to the floor over and over again. His action seemed to surprise her, but she still slid her hands up to curl around his neck as he pushed her down onto the grass, lips in a frenzy over her own.

'This wasn't real', he thought as he melded his lips against hers roughly, hands latched to her hips and dragging her against him. 'She isn't real'... But it didn't matter to him at all. Because right here, right now, safe in the depths of his mind... she  _was_  real; and she was alive.

"Don't cry, Daryl." she whispered between kisses, reaching up and wiping a foreign dampness from his cheek that he hadn't even realized had been gathering.

Tears glistened in his eyes as he broke from her lips and gazed down at her through wobbly vision, and felt his breathing hitch. Her hand stroked his stubbly cheek as she smiled up at him, those big doe eyes of hers filled with all the warmth and affection in the world. She was looking at him like he was the rain, and she'd been wandering in the desert for days without water. Like he was the sun, and she was freezing.

Like he was everything.

"Don't cry..." she whispered again, pulling his forehead down to rest against hers, her breath warm on his face and oh so real.

More silver droplets slid down his cheeks and dropped onto the scar on her cheek, making it shimmer and glint with the light of the sun. He pressed his thumb to it and stroked it lightly. This was his fault. This was because he hadn't protected her, because he'd left her to get out on her own when the walkers overrun the funeral home, because he hadn't been there in that damned hospital to stop them hurting her.

His large hand trembled against her dainty face as he opened his mouth to whisper quietly in a shaky voice.

"...I think I loved you,"

Her eyes flashed with emotion as her smile grew sad. She tucked a few bangs behind his ear and nodded slowly. "...I know."

Of course she knew. Beth knew everything when it came to him. She'd read him like a book. Opened him up and read every single page... then kept the story with her. The 'oh' she'd mumbled at the table of the funeral home proved she knew of his feelings, and if it hadn't been for their separation... he'd know what hers were too... if she returned them or not. Most likely not, but what hurt the most was how he would never know. His dreams could only do so much, only use what he knew. But after he'd given her that look that fueled every single thing he felt for her, and channeled it through his eyes; she'd looked at him... like she  _could_  love him. If given the chance, and time... perhaps she could've.

Her hand reached up and pressed flat against where his heart lay beating rapidly, thundering against her palm. Daryl looked at her with eyes filled with such raw emotion; emotion like how he'd looked at her before she'd been taken from him. And before life had been taken from her. That's all the world was now - all take and no give.  _Cruel_. It wasn't fair.

" _Life_  isn't fair," she spoke, reading his mind. She did that a lot when talking to him now. "It's full of pain, and hurt, and heartbreak... But somehow... we still find reasons to carry on living."

"There ain't much left to live for anymore." he retorted harshly, telling the truth as it was. Because that was the truth.

"There is." she argued firmly, fingers curling around the dirty fabric of his shirt. "There  _are_  reasons to live... So you're not just  _surviving_."

"Ain't much o' a difference between those words anymore..."

Even his dream version of her couldn't think of anything to say to that. She just laid beneath him there, fingers clasping his shirt and eyes big and unblinking.

"... _You_  were one of my reasons, Beth." he whispered quietly, voice trembling as he struggled to vocalize the depth of what she meant to him. How he loved her, and how without her everything was suddenly all so meaningless. Every walker they killed, every new friend they made, every safe place they found... he found himself constantly thinking:  _what was the point?_  What was the point if she weren't there to enjoy it with them?

What was the point of living if the ones who deserved to live didn't make it?

Beth pulled herself up and fastened her mouth over his despairingly, seemingly trying to wipe thoughts like that out of his head. Her legs and arms were wound around him and he was back to kissing her frantically, stroking the hotness of her impossibly real mouth with his tongue, hand wandering up under her yellow polo to caress the soft flesh beneath. Rough calloused hands touching every inch of her.

But it wasn't enough.

It was never enough.

His hand strayed all the way up to cup one of her small breasts, and he rubbed her perked nipple with his thumb, relishing in her soft mews of pleasure and squirms under his sensual administrations. He reached and opened her collar to suckle at the pulse point in her neck; to sink his teeth into her and taste her heart beating right through her flesh. No matter how much he touched, or how much he tasted, it still wasn't enough to make him forget those painful memories she'd left him with, and just  _feel_.

She reached for his belt and unbuckled it, tugging his torn apart trousers down his legs to crinkle at his ankles. Hers were off in a flash as well, miraculously - the logic of dreams, and she dragged her bare sex across his hard length. Drawing anguished moans from him that came out in half sobs.

"I  _would've_  loved you," she smiled up at him, eyes always so full of trust; so giving. Waiting.

And at that, he sunk deep into her wet scorching heat, delving down into what could have been the very depths of hell, but far sweeter and intensely pleasant. He closed his eyes and let himself just feel. Feel everything that was her... ravish everything she could offer and pound into her until the breath left him and he was sure that he would die... before she disappeared and left a big gaping hole in his existence again.

She didn't mean to, he knew that. But she couldn't help it when he eventually and inevitably did wake up... which he always did. That was the one thing neither of them could prevent. Because if it was up to Daryl, he would gladly stay in the world of this twisted but beautiful fantasy with her forever. So far gone with her, completely lost and unwilling to find his way back. Because that was the cost of loving Beth Greene. Losing oneself and surrendering to a passion of what could have been... what _should_  have been. Before the chance was snatched away and he was left to wallow in knowing that he could've been loved by Beth Greene.

And that was the final thing he thought before he woke up; lathered in a cold sweat, a vicious hard-on straining against his pants, and cheeks soaked with tears.


End file.
